Snowcrash - a really fun high concept sci-fi that’s plays around with some heady concepts.
It breaks down if you think about it too hard, but hey, enjoy it while you can.
Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?
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Re: Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?
#122I read through most of PG Wodehouse this year. 'Ukridge' is perhaps the funniest collection of stories ever written, it's magic. I love all the books set in Blandings. While the Jeeves books were not my favorite when I was younger, I really really enjoy them now.
Wodehouse is amazing. Tied with Pratchett for the best humorist writer in my opinion. I've searched a lot to find more humorist writers but it's a very limited genre. Most comedy writing is too cynical for me. By contrast Wodehouse and Pratchett manage to be funny while also being uplifting. Does anyone have any recommendations for not-too-cynical humorist authors beside these two?
Death and Croissants, Ian Moore: gentle humorous crime thriller. Follows a divorced slightly unsuccessful middle aged man who has emigrated from Britain to france and runs a B&B. he bumps into a glamorous but mysterious woman who he struggles to keep up with. best listened to by the author.
gentle, fun and not cynical. Some of the characters are, but the series is not cynical, its slightly naive in it's own way.
Re: Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?
#123Just finished my third reading of The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes. It really ruined most other history books for me by setting the bar so high.
I finished his fourth book Twilight of the Bombs earlier this year - a great look at nuclear proliferation at the fall of the Cold War and how it shaped many US foreign policy decisions.
Re: Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?
#124Kind of off-path from my regular reading, but I recently got absorbed into the planted aquarium world. This book was such a great way to get acquainted with the ecology and methods required, though once you do it... It's extremely obvious that it works, and why it works: Ecology of the Planted Aquarium: A Practical Manual and Scientific Treatise https://www.amazon.ca/Ecology-Planted-Aquarium-Practical-Sci... Having a…
Any guides on what kind of equipment and set up is needed to get started? I've been having thoughts of having a "slice of nature" like you said. But I don't know what's the way to get as close to a self-sufficient and passive system as possible.
Get a 20 gallon tank with grow light hood, add dirt (organic potting soil), cover with aquarium rocks, add aquarium plants, 6-12 shrimp, and 4+ snails, add a sponge filter, enjoy your little ecosystem.
Re: Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?
#125I stumbled upon Leonard Susskinds physics lectures on YouTube and bought the accompanying books [1]. The target audience are people like me, who had some intermediate physics and math lectures at university "before life happened".
The books and lectures fill the gap between "real" theoretical books / lecture notes and popular science books that try to circumvent math at every cost.
Re: Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?
#126The Dawn of Everything, by Graeber and Wengrow. Refutes most of the claims made by Harari in Sapiens, and shows everything you though you knew about prehistory is plain wrong. It's a great book, very well written and well informed. Made me think that humanity's history isn't an arrow pointing in the direction of progress; we make experiments. Our current way of life is not the "best so far", it's but one arrangement…
>> Refutes most of the claims made by Harari in Sapiens Can You elaborate on this? - I quite liked Harraris book, especially his ideas about stories driving human cooperation and expansion. Does this false claims invalidates the main message of Sapiens?
"Most" is an exaggeration; "many" would have been fine; it's been a while since I read Sapiens, sorry about that.
I was mainly referring to how he talks about the invention of agriculture.
There has never been an agricultural "revolution". Cultivation was practiced for at least 3,000 years (probably much longer) before some human groups decided to make it their main mode of subsistence, while many others, already familiar with the concept, decided not to.
Re: Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?
#127Snowcrash - a really fun high concept sci-fi that’s plays around with some heady concepts. It breaks down if you think about it too hard, but hey, enjoy it while you can.
With a character named Jiro Protagonist, this is a clue that perhaps it is less cyberpunk and more of a satire of cyberpunk. It's very good, of course. Also recommended from Neal Stephenson: The Diamond Age. His world building is always top-notch, never more than in that one, IMHO.
Re: Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?
#128"How We Think" by John Dewey.
Re: Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?
#129I've recently finished , and absolutely love it. The style is one of clarity, tenderness, and honesty, and just plain beautiful in the section where---avoiding spoilers---they journeyed through the ice sheet, which is such a breath-taking portrayal of that environmental harshness, the human vulnerability, and the tenacity of will. It's often classified as Sci-fi, but there's nothing particularly sciency or techy abou…
I always liked LeGuin. If you like her, maybe you'd like Louis McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga, which is an interesting combination of an unusually vulnerable protagonist and a traditional space opera setting. She's got some straight fantasy that's good, too.
Re: Ask HN: Any interesting books you have read lately?
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
What practical lessons did you take from these books?
I hope to write about this in detail sometime. Just giving myself some time for experience to percolate and synthesize into something worth publishing. Meanwhile, I'll give one instance of how it helps practically. Say, I manage engineers, and I have a new intern, who is supposed to behave in a particular way, with particular standards. Their words strongly suggest sincerity, but again and again their actions go in t…
It's like the anti-fundamental attribution error. I like it!